Skype Publishes Solution For Client Crash

Skype has published the full details of how to solve the issue that has been affecting millions of users of its popular VoIP service worldwide; in addition to Windows Vista and Windows 7 platforms, Windows XP and MacOS X users have also been affected.

Users will have to tinker with one file within their computers which may put off some altogether. But for those who are ready to take the challenge, here are the steps.

Close Skype completely. You will need to log out first and then right click on its icon in the system tray and choose quit.

Next you will have to make sure that you can view hidden files and folders; this can be done by clicking on "start", then type "run" and press on the "enter" key. Type "control folders" and validate again. Go to the view tab and ensure that the relevant radio button is ticked.

Then delete the file shared.xml which can be located by clicking on "start", typing "run", pressing on "enter" and then typing %appdata%\skype and clicking on OK. Locate the shared.xml file and delete it.

Restarting Skype will create a new shared.xml file. Skype did not say why the shared.xml file was corrupted or whether it is working on an alternative solution for those who do not want to go through these steps.